The Australian music industry is a harsh place. Overnight success stories are non-existent. For every band that makes it far enough to be signed to a label, release a debut full-length, or gain national radio play on the hallowed Triple J, there’s a hundred others that fall by the wayside. Through sheer determination and painstaking persistence, Brisbane garage blues duo The Blackwater Fever have battled through the pleasure and pain to conceive their debut full-length album, the aptly titled ‘Sweet Misery’.
By Gav Britton
‘Waiting’ could have been an equally fitting title for The Blackwater Fever’s debut. Ever since forming the band with ex-drummer Rick Demarco in 2005, vocalist/guitarist Shane Hicks has been waiting. Hicks and Demarco released their first EP, ‘Abused Blues’, in January 2006. Its powerful and modern take on the garage blues sound showed incredible promise and instantly won over those lucky enough to hear it, including Triple J’s Ash Grunwald, Sarah Howells and Caroline Tran (who nominated The Blackwater Fever’s moody ‘Back For You’ as one of her most ideal ‘Songs To Root To’ in JMag). The EP even made it into Tsunami’s Top Ten Australian releases for 2006, despite having no label at the time. Modest touring opportunities and radio airplay followed, but Hicks knew all to well that a full-length album was what was needed to push the band to the next level.
By that stage Demarco had become a father and couldn’t devote enough time to touring, writing and recording. After making the tough decision to part ways with his close friend, Hicks began searching for a new drummer. “Time went on as I looked for another drummer and then I found Andrew [Walter],” recalls Hicks. Once on board, it took six months for Walter to find his feet in the band. At the time, the switch to a blues duo was totally foreign to Walter, but he soon fit in and his hard-hitting style has become an integral part of The Blackwater Fever’s sound. “I’d played my share of different styles, but never in a duo. I’d always played with a bass player, so it was a little bit challenging at first. I was playing in a very quiet alt-country band, so it was just good to smash the drums again,” says Walter. Disheartened with the Sunshine Coast music scene, the pair soon realised a move to Brisbane was in order if they were to progress any further. “Brisbane has stacks of great bands and they’re all going for it,” explains Hicks. “It’s not so much that it’s competitive – it’s a lot more creative and everyone’s pro-active.”
Finding a producer for the album turned out to be surprisingly simple initially, although it eventually led to more waiting. “We did a tour with The Fumes at the start of 2007 and became mates with the tour’s sound guy, Ryan Hazell, who was really keen to take on recording the album,” tells Hicks. “But he was locked into doing a European tour with The Drones, so that meant waiting another six months for him to return. We felt he was the best man for the job so we waited it out. We just kept working the material and doing shows and during that time Ash Grunwald and Sarah Howells from Triple J’s ‘Roots ‘N’ All’ kept asking us when we were going to drop an album. It seemed so far away.”
By August 2007, it was finally time for the guys to enter MVM studios in Sydney to begin laying down tracks with Hazell. “We spent a week in Sydney and tracked the album. It was all sounding really good,” says Walter. “After seven days we had to get back to our day jobs, so we left most of the tracks unmixed. From there it was a struggle getting mixes in the mail and really hard to relay over the phone how we wanted things to sound. We realised just how pedantic we both were with our ideals on how we wanted to sound on record. We decided to take the recordings to ElevenPM studios on the Sunshine Coast. With this studio being 800kms closer, it let us sit side by side with engineer Dave Drummond and get really picky with the mixes.”
After many sleepless nights at ElevenPM studios, for once it seemed like the tide had turned and an end was finally in sight. Unfortunately, more unforeseeable hurdles lay in the band’s way. “We were recording some extra guitars and while we were doing that the studio got flooded during the night by a massive flash storm. The studio was a mess, with mud right through the rooms, but fortunately it narrowly missed most of the equipment. At this point we started making jokes about the album being cursed,” says Walter. That held back the mixes again. “That was right around the point when we really wanted to have the album to hand to The Black Keys when we opened for them at The Tivoli,” laments Hicks. The album might not have been ready in time to give to The Black Keys, but their opening slot with them at The Tivoli in June proved to be a rewarding one; impressing not only the sold-out crowd, but also Plus One Records owner Simon Homer, who caught the band’s set while he was manning the merchandise desk.
Meanwhile, Hicks and Walter were still trying to put the finishing touches on ‘Sweet Misery’. Mutual musical acquaintances Steve Merry (The Fumes), Alex Archer (The Kill Devil Hills) and Sydney soloist Red Ghost were all keen to perform on the album, but fitting in with their busy schedules meant more waiting. “We had to weigh up whether we really wanted to put those guys on. We went with the wait,” says Hicks. Red Ghost ended up accompanying Hicks on haunting murder ballad ‘Red’ and Merry performed a solo on ‘Blackwater‘, but it was Archer’s violin part on ‘Sweet Misery’ that proved the hardest to source. “He was definitely keen to do it; it was just hard for him to find the time. In the end he went into a studio over in WA and had free reign on the track. He definitely added a key element to that song, so it was worth the eight month wait,” laughs Hicks at the absurdity of their situation.
But the waiting game didn’t end there. Once the album was mastered, Hicks started going down the avenue of getting the samples cleared. “That took another four months of sitting on our arses waiting for the samples to get cleared. In the end it was going to cost a fortune to clear them so we had to go back into the studio and rip them out, plus it meant remastering the tracks,” he says. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. By that stage the band had met up with Simon from Plus One Records, who was so impressed by the band’s performance with The Black Keys and the final master of ‘Sweet Misery’ that he signed them to his already burgeoning label. The Blackwater Fever were also attracting attention from overseas, with Shin Fukuzumi from Japan’s P-Vine Records contacting them from out of the blue. “Shin heard us on ‘Roots ‘N’ All’,” explains Hicks. “He listens to Triple J via Podcasts and got in touch wanting to license the album in Japan. That was really refreshing because he wanted to license it based on the sound of the music and nothing else.”
They say good things come to those who wait, and that adage certainly applies to The Blackwater Fever. Uniquely packaged and recorded to mimic a vinyl record - complete with Side A, Side B, vinyl drops and crackle - the finished CD looks as good as it sounds. The quality of the album’s 13 tracks is undeniable and is what no doubt spurred Hicks and Walter on when it looked as if all odds were stacked against them. From infectious rockers ‘Love Sick’ and ‘Better Off Dead’, to brooding ballads like ‘Red’ and ‘Back For You’, the debut album channels old school blues through a modern alternative rock filter. Hicks’ beat-up vocal chords sound like they’ve been soaked in whisky since birth and instantly draw comparisons to the likes of Tom Waits and Mark Lanegan. His lyrics and guitar style pay homage to the blues greats, such as Howlin’ Wolf, but when combined with Walter’s pounding percussion, form dark grooves more in line with Tool or Queens of the Stone Age. When it came time to pick an album title, one track in particular stood out as the obvious choice: ‘Sweet Misery’. “That song lyrically is about the struggle within making music,” says Hicks. “I love playing music, but at the same time it’s a lot of hard work. You’re constantly pushing up hill. That’s basically what that song is about. It’s about that whole journey of trying to get somewhere in the music industry and how much of a struggle it is. It’s a lot of hard work, but you love it nonetheless. It’s a sweet misery.”
‘Sweet Misery’ is out November 22 through Plus One Records/Shock.
November 13 at the Sol Bar, Coolum (with the John Steel Singers), December 11 at The Zoo, Brisbane (with The Datsuns and Black Diamond Heavies), December 13 at the Festival of the Sun, Port Macquarie, December 30 at Peats Ridge Festival, Glenworth Valley and January 3 at The Great Noosa Camp Out.
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